One man's wanderings through the MMO metaverse

Archive for February, 2009

Why, you may ask? WordPress is warm and cozy and familiar! Well, here’s the thing: while wordpress is an awesome host and software, the best I’ve used to date, I’m also part of a gaming community, one with aspirations to grow and expand. Prophecy just launched a blog hosting service to it’s members and I certainly would be setting a lousy example if I didn’t take advantage of it.

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1.2 looks set to be the biggest patch since 1.1. It’ll bring the two new classes alongside some rather radical changes to some classes. Some nerfs (poor Witchelves), some buffs (me!), some fixes (no more disorient stacking). So what am I looking forward to?

Two things. I’ll be able to drop Scavenging for Butchering and level up Apothecary skill entirely through Butchering. About time. Mythic have noted that there will be NPC’s i nthe capital cities that will allow you to retrain from one gathering skil lto another and retain the same skill level in the new gathering profession. Whoop whoop!

Second, Shamans are getting some decent buffs. Group heals are being buffed, Gork’ll Fix It is becoming a better flat-heal with a weaker HoT component, but that’s fine, I never really relied on the spell’s HoT, rather as a quick flat ‘flash’ heal, which it’ll be better for now. Don’t Feel Nuthin is getting a buff too, not entirely sure how much of a buff but right now anything’s better than it’s current incarnation.

I could spot no buffs to Mork or Green abilities but as a hybrid class that relies strongly on it’s heals even if specced for dps or group utility, I’m not too worried.

The good folks from Mythic are at New York Comic Con and hamming it up in style. Ten Ton Hammer has some footage of the convention including gameplay vids of the new classes. Lots of new information coming out, such as the Orc Choppa having an ability called ‘Get to da Choppa’. The name alone is awesome and hilarious, but having a look at the ability itself, it’ll pull targets to the choppa himself, much like the Marauder and White Lion.

The Good: Two new classes, lots of new content, fixes announced in the coming months, official forums, and simply stuff.

The Bad. Only 300K subscribers remaining.

The Ugly. Anywhere between 60 and 130 Mythic employees laid off.

Looking at everything together it looks like we’re in for a bumpy ride. I’ve raised the point before that WAR is all about dizzying highs, and crushing lows, and over the past few days we’ve certainly seen this proven. (more…)

It has been said that, in WAR, there is no benefit to defense, only to offense. This may be true, indeed, although at the same time denying your opponent resources is a valid strategy in and of itself, and in a real world situation, would be victory enough.

Much of the problem with trying to simulate warfare in a game like WAR, is that it’s a game. And defeat is merely a blow to your ego as opposed to the loss of your (way of) life. Therefore in WAR, the game of warfare focuses primarily on offense.(more…)